News from the Goolag Since 2006 ~ A survival guide to the creative apocalypse: We follow issues and opinion important to professional creators. Data is the new exposure.

Category: Copyright

[This post originally appeared in the Huffington Post] Once a song is distributed to the public with the permission of the owner of the copyright in the song, the U.S. Copyright Act requires songwriters to license songs for reproduction and distribution under a “compulsory license.” This license is typically called a “mechanical license” because it […]

[Ed: This post originally appeared on MTP on January 30, 2009–how little has changed American songwriters are one of our greatest sources of culture as well as important contributors to America’s “soft power“–our ability to win hearts and minds around the world by attraction and not by force. As Professor Joseph Nye would say “Lennon […]

In a move perhaps connected to Google’s prosecution and payment of $500 million forfeiture for promoting the sale of illegal drugs, The Guardian reports that the UK Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt will announce today that the Cameron Government expects “Google and other companies to take action against rogue sites, but could introduce new legislation in […]

“Mechanical royalties” refer to monies paid to songwriters or music publishers for reproductions of songs in sound recordings (either for permanent downloads or streaming mechanicals). Mechanical royalties (or “mechanicals”) are usually paid by record companies (or outside the US, by digital retailers). In the United States these rates are set by statute and have varied […]

There is a bit of strategy involved with affiliating with a performing rights society in the United States. All the societies have a creative staff. The decision to affiliate with a particular society should be made after the artist/writer has taken some meetings with the performing rights society and decided if there’s more love coming […]

Artist Glossary of Industry Terms: “Advance” An “advance” is almost always defined as a pre-payment of royalties, whether the advance is paid by record company to an artist, a publisher to a writer or a merchandiser to an artist. An advance is also sometimes called a “minimum guarantee”. Advances in the music industry do not […]

I was at a dinner in Rome a few years ago at which the dinner speaker was Terry Fisher of that law school whose name cannot be said and author of various books that touch the music world. (“Touch” might not be the right word.) I witnessed yet another example of what I call the […]